Ch. 22 – Blue's Clues
There was something off about Dance.
Helena couldn't quite put her finger on it right away. Something about the way she walked and talked. Something in how her moves were just as powerful as Calypso's. More than just siblings, they were so alike she had to be Calypso's twin, from the muscle tone to personality.
"Impressive, mmm," Dance simpered, spinning one of the machete around her hand as she looked Helena up and down with that same, lecherous smirk her so-called brother had. "You're pretty quick on your feet, and your Observation Haki is stronger than I rem…is strong. But you can't keep it up forever, mmm."
Though Helena longed to give Hancock a parting scar to remember her by, her executioner kept her full attention. The dagger had proven thus far useless against Dance except to redirect the occasional close-range blow. Perhaps she should have asked for one of her swords.
It didn't help that she hadn't managed to keep down any of the food Marguerite had offered her earlier. Shaking, she'd entered the fight on an empty stomach, and even now felt queasy. Dance was right; Helena wouldn't last much longer.
"Monroe Mince!"
Dance's next attack came in a quick succession of slashes, aimed at Helena's feet, forcing her to dance on her tippy toes to dodge away. Fortunately, she was pretty skilled in that regard, but Dance laughed at her all the same.
"So how do you know my brother?" she asked, smirking through her mirth as she sauntered toward her prey.
That's what was off about her walk. She walked like a man!
Dance continued in a self-assured tone, "Are you one of his many lovers, mmm?"
Her voice sounded like falsetto. That, "Mmm," sounded like a suppressed, "Mon."
Helena let out a chuff. "Hades, no!" she cried emphatically, "He was a terrible kisser."
Dance's face unexpectedly darkened. Helena's lip curled as her suspicions multiplied:
"He totally smelled like cheese…"
"Hmph!" Dance let out a masculine grunt.
"And he was just so tiny," Helena finished with gusto, "I mean, you know what they say about men with small feet."
"Shut up!" Dance snarled, her voice deepening noticeably. She lunged forward, slashing hard enough to throw a cut.
Only this time instead of destroying the stands, she'd accidentally slash toward Hancock's platform.
Helena had purposely placed herself in that precise position, trying to set up an opportunity like this. Instead of trying to dodge the slash, she took it head on, blocking it with her dagger. The unfocused but powerful attack threw her hard onto the platform holding the snake princess and her sisters.
Hancock sidestepped the slash, but failed to fully dodge Helena as the 'lesser' threat. In seconds, Helena had her in a choke hold, her sea prism dagger barely digging into the Snake Princess' throat. Salome the snake tried to come to her master's aid, but Helena brought a swift heel down on its head, stunning it.
Sandersonia and Marigold reacted instantly, transforming themselves into two enormous snakes. Helena glared up at them, letting loose the faintest trickle of their sister's blood.
"Trust me. I won't hesitate to kill my daughter's kidnapper," Helena snarled as Hancock fell limp against her.
With their empress completely and obviously under Helena's power, the Boa sisters each let loose an angry hiss, but otherwise didn't attack. Helena could feel the a hundred haki-coated arrows trained on her person, but knew that no one had a clear enough shot to get her without hurting Hancock
"Tell me something," Helena went on in an even tone. "If all the children born to the Kuja are female, how could Calypso Dance have a brother?"
"What does that matter?" Sonia snarled.
"Because I suspect that that 'woman' you have me fighting is actually a man," Helena replied, smirking.
Marigold and Sonia turned as one to stare at the half-naked Dance, and then slowly back at the Sun Queen. "That…is a man?" they asked together with obvious incredulity.
Their suspicion was only natural. After all, Dance's attire left little to the imagination. 'She' clearly had all the female equipment, and none of the male. But Helena knew Calypso Blue too well to doubt herself. She didn't know how he'd managed it, but that was most definitely him in an incredibly convincing disguise.
"If I can prove it, will you let me and my daughter leave?"
Hancock let out a chuff. "A man on our island is a serious crime, but not serious enough to exonerate you, Sun Queen."
"What if I were to tell you that man is Cipher Pol?"
The gorgon sisters' shocked expressions told Helena she'd struck a chord.
"The World Government wouldn't dare to infiltrate your island, right? – much less your handpicked crew!" Helena smirked. "Don't make the same mistake that I did. That man is Head Agent of the team that brought down Ilium. His name is Calypso Blue."
"Why should we believe you?" Hancock sneered over Helena's blade.
"Believe her," a withered voice put in. "She's telling the truth."
Helena looked down on the diminutive old lady now on the platform, who leaned on her snake, which had straightened itself like a staff. If memory served, Helena had seen Sonia throw her into the stands earlier.
Hancock's perfectly plucked eyebrow twitched in annoyance and Helena could feel the Snake Princess' haki building. Though the dagger against her throat weakened her body, her spirit was as strong as ever, and Helena didn't have long to try to convince her before risking another haki clash:
"If I can prove it, will you turn Kuina back and let us both go?" Helena asked again.
"I'll consider it," Hancock conceded, and Helena released her:
"Tell your archers to stand down," she said, and then backing up for a running start, she launched herself back into the arena without waiting for Hancock's reply.
"Surely you don't believe her," Sonia insisted. She had returned back to her human form, helping Hancock to sit upright enough to wave down the archers. The crowd went crazy, shouting for Dance to end the one who had attacked their Empress a second time.
"We lose nothing by allowing her the chance," Hancock pointed out, barely audible above the din of the mob. She rubbed the cut on her throat, then looked at the blood on her hand with her lip curled in disgust. "Anyway, I see no reason to acquit her if she does prove this theory of hers."
"I doubt she will last long enough to prove anything, sister," Mari observed. "She shook even as she tried to hold you and Salome down. She seems ill."
Salome sat up and hissed, a large bump sprouting on her head where Helena had struck her. Hancock idly stroked her pet with long, deft fingers:
"Then I supposed we have nothing to worry about."
"Yes, you do, because she's telling the truth," Nyon insisted again. "And what is more, when she proves it, I advise you to allow her to live, and befriend her if you can. Where there is one Cipher Pol Agent, there are likely more. She can help us to spot them."
"Not ten minutes ago you were telling me to turn her over to the World Government," Hancock pointed out, pouting grumpily. "You always want me licking their feet, and now you want me to distrust them?"
Nyon sighed. "I never said to trust them," she said, then turned her gaze down on the battle below. Dance had yet to land a hit, but the Sun Queen had yet to go on the offensive. How she planned to unmask the hidden Cipher Pol agent was a mystery.
Hancock glanced at Nyon sidelong, curious enough not to have her thrown from the platform for the time being:
"How are you so sure Queen Helena is telling the truth?" she asked in a level tone.
"Because I knew a Calypso Dance from years ago," Nyon said. "She was older than the warrior down there. And she didn't have a brother. But she did have a son. And she named him Blue."
Hancock pursed her lips. "You knew Dance was using a pseudonym but never said anything when we allowed her to join to Kuja Pirates?"
"'She' never revealed 'her' surname before now," Nyon pointed out. "In any case, a second Calypso Dance could be written off as a coincidence. But the name Blue…- as soon as I heard it, I started making my way up here to warn you that something wasn't right. Hearing the Sun Queen's explanation has confirmed my suspicions. I believe that warrior down there is Calypso Blue using his mother's name."
"The original Calypso Dance," Sonia started, "Surely she could not have been of the Kuja. Not if she bore a son."
"Male children on Amazon Lily, though rare, aren't completely unheard of," Nyon explained. "There is generally one every few generations. And, well, our culture has not been kind to them I'm afraid."
Hancock opened her mouth to demand a better explanation, but stopped short. The battle below had just gotten interesting. Dance had landed a solid hit.
Helena lay face down and vomited what little contents her stomach contained; mostly bile. She'd almost gotten close enough to use her weapon, but Dance had come at her hard with both machetes. When Helena managed to block the two longer blades with her dagger, courtesy of Mihawk's training, Dance had kneed her hard in the abdomen.
Completely winded and seeing stars, she couldn't move to defend herself. Thankfully, her opponent's ego lead to a moment of gloating:
"I thought you were made of tougher stuff, mmm," 'she' trilled in that annoying falsetto.
Yeah, me too, Helena thought, fighting tunnel vision as she struggled to get her bearings. It should take more than a kick to the stomach to fell her, yet she felt like her body was going into panic mode, trying to shut down over it.
"Seems pathetic to end you this way, mmm," Dance went on, resting a machete on the back of Helena's neck. Dance leaned in, and the snide comment to follow came out in a deeper voice, confirming Helena's suspicion as to her executioner's identity: "I would have preferred some time alone together before the end, my sweet 'Elena."
Helena barely heard him. Her vision had gone black, and she took advantage of the darkness to forget herself and widen the scope of her haki.
She felt every breath of the crowd, the breath of the very stones beneath her. She felt the wind move as Calypso lifted his disguised arms upward, preparing to decapitate her. But in this state, she could see more – the façade around him felt like fabric to her senses, a gossamer gauze winding around him, adjusting itself with each movement.
A devil fruit.
But not his. An ethereal thread wound away from his person and into the front row of the crowd, tied to the finger of…
"…Cipher Pol again," Helena thought. "I should have realized he wouldn't come here alone."
She'd run out of time. With her senses so finely tuned, she managed to roll away, avoiding Calypso's falling blade by a literal hair. Through her haki, she sensed said hair as it blew away in the breeze of Calypso's next swing.
Helena staggered to her feet, her vision starting to clear. Once again, she lifted her blade to block one of Calypso's overpowered attacks, allowing it to launch her, this time into the first few rows of the crowd. She found her target, not in Hancock, but in Diddy de Daedalus.
Diddy had managed to duck Calypso's slash, but like Hancock before her, had been focused on the bigger threat. She didn't think to dodge Helena or her blade until it rested point down into her exposed thigh.
"Got you!" Helena cried. Diddy let out a scream of pain and fell limp. "But since when did you have a devil fruit power?"
"Since taking down your country, you underdressed ingrate. A reward for decades of hard work," Diddy sneered through gritted teeth. The underdressed comment seemed ironic, given the old woman wore Amazonian attire herself. "The Glamor Glamor fruit. It allows me to fabulize."
"You mean to disguise," Helena translated. "You didn't do a very good job. All of his main features are the same."
"Help me, Dimitri," Diddy croaked, drawing something on the stonework of the stand with a piece of fabric chalk. "I can't be taken out by such a tacky woman."
Helena hadn't heard that name before, but she wasn't about to let Diddy call in reinforcements. She yanked her dagger free, and knocked Diddy out with the butt of the blade.
Sure enough, the glamor around Calypso faded, drawing loud gasps from the crowd. His mouth dropped open as he sensed the change. He looked down at himself, then up at Helena and swore.
Still dressed in the scant attire of the Kuja, Calypso stood exposed in all his manly glory.
"Trust me when I say that some people should not wear bikinis," Helena went on. "Stop laughing, Zoro. That traumatizing image is seared into my brain forever, thank you very much."
Zoro just laughed harder.
"Wait, but this devil fruit Diddy had. What exactly does it do?" Usopp asked, looking nervous.
"It can create glamors that change the appearance of someone around her," Helena said. "I don't know the scope of it, or whether it applies to just people, but that's what it looks like based on what I've seen."
"So not only are we up against a Cipher Pol team, you're telling us they could look different every time we see them?" Usopp pointed out, clearly terrified. "They could be anywhere!"
"Um," Helena paused. "Well, I guess. Yes. But remember, she couldn't really disguise Calypso's main features. I think the power has its limits."
"Every devil fruit has a learning curve. She may improve over time," Robin pointed out. "If Diddy had only recently acquired her power, then it makes sense that her glamor of Calypso Blue would be basic, to the point that underneath it he had to wear the actual clothing his persona needed."
"Ugh…don't remind me," Helena shivered. "Zoro, if you actually picture what I'm saying you'd stop laughing and probably barf."
"My imagination stopped at his bewildered expression, trust me," Zoro assured her.
Helena got a mischievous look on her face: "His bikini was neon pink," she said.
Zoro gagged. "WHY DID YOU TELL ME THAT?"
"With little yellow polka dots!"
"STOP!"
"Did I mention it was a string bikini?"
Zoro ran out of the room to go puke over the side of the Sunny. When he got back, he'd been doused again in rain and looked extremely put out.
"You just had to share the full image, didn't you," he grumped.
Helena grinned and shrugged. "Just sharing the love."
"Ow!" Franky put in, "This guy sounds like a superrrrr pervert!"
Helena rolled her eyes, "You have no idea."
Calypso recovered quickly after the initial shock of having his glamor fade. Removing his obviously useless bikini top with a flourish, he shamelessly flexed his muscles for the world to see:
"Get a good look, ladies!" he pronounced, all falsetto completely abandoned. "This is what a man looks like, mon. You know you want some of this!"
Helena rolled her eyes at Calypso's grandstanding. Then she noticed that every last woman in the stadium had varying degrees of nosebleed.
"What is this?" someone cried.
"I don't understand," said another.
"Is this a plague?"
"The man has brought a plague!"
"This is why men are banned here! Drive the plague-bringer from the island!"
Helena stifled a laugh, grateful that Calypso had drawn all attention away from her. She felt queasy and light-headed after the battle, and overdue for some kind of reprieve. She didn't think she could handle getting tackled by a mob of angry Amazons.
Hancock gestured with her hand for the archers to open fire on Calypso. A futile effort, really. Helena knew each arrow had a wicked haki coating, but any swordsman worth their salt could dodge or cut any number of arrows. Even in her exhausted state, years of training with projectiles would have made dodging said arrows child's play for her, to say nothing of Calypso.
Sure enough, the master swordsman didn't break a sweat deflecting, dodging, and dicing. Soon he stood amid a smattering of broken shafts, grinning his perfect smile amid loud boos from the crowd.
He seemed unafraid of the women now screaming for his demise. On the contrary, he bounced his pecs for their benefit, grinning as a few women passed out at the display. Helena let out an annoyed chuff, then noticed that she too had a bead of blood trickling toward her lip, which she angrily sniffed back out of sight.
Boa Hancock got to her feet, a veritable bonfire of rage. Even the Queen of Seduction herself had a small line of blood on her face, which she dabbed with an air of shock.
"How dare you!" she cried, looking at the smear of blood on her finger. "I have eyes for only one man."
Well, she was nothing if not loyal to Zoro; Helena had to give her that.
"Don't feel bad, mon. No hot-blooded female can resist the Hurricane," Calypso informed her with a wink.
"Is that so?" Hancock asked. She cocked her head to the side, regarding him with the air of a viper scrutinizing its prey. She descended the staircase from her platform with slow, swaying steps, never breaking eye contact. Soon she came to a stop before him. "I suppose you're right. Only a man of true caliber could not only sneak into this country unnoticed, but earn a place among the Kuja Pirates. We would be foolish to allow such a paragon to leave us."
Calypso said nothing, just regarded her with the same calculating look she gave him. He seemed to be enjoying her proximity, and even dared to give her the once over, letting his eyes linger where they would.
On his eyes' journey back up, they stopped short at a pair of hands held in the shape of a heart in front of his face.
"Love Love Beam!" she proclaimed.
Helena could think of no more fitting end than for the arrogant letch to be trapped in stone forever. But though the beam started out mere inches from his face, Calypso vanished before it could envelope him. Seconds later he appeared behind Hancock, grabbed her by the hand, and spun her into a dip:
"Nice try, but I know all the tricks, mon," he informed her smugly.
Hancock didn't waste any time. She twisted in an attempt to grab him in a headlock with her legs. He disappeared again though, and she flipped to land gracefully on her high-heels.
Calypso called out to her, this time from up on the platform:
"I'll just get what I came for then, hmm?" he said, snatching Kuina up in one well-muscled arm. He'd already knocked out the snake acting as Kuina's mini throne. Before Hancock's two sisters or Salome could do anything to stop him, he'd launched himself into the air using sky walk.
"No!" Hancock and Helena screamed at once. Helena had jumped to her feet, adrenaline burning through her exhaustion.
It didn't make any sense. Calypso had infiltrated Amazon Lily to the point of becoming a Kuja pirate. He could have kidnapped Kuina at any time! Why now?
Then it struck her. Cipher Pol had known about Kuina all along. They'd only allowed Hancock to keep her to use as bait to lure Helena out of hiding.
Right on cue, a withered but strong hand clamped around her ankle. Helena glanced down to see that Diddy had already come to her senses.
"Dimitri!" she croaked, cross-eyed, and she added one final line to the drawing she'd created on the ground.
A silent puff of blue and white polka-dotted smoke, and suddenly a person stood where the symbol had been drawn. Dressed in an oversized, black hoody and comfy pajama pants, the new arrival looked completely incongruous against the sea of bikini clad woman. Helena couldn't discern anything about the body-type or gender of said person through their baggy clothes, but presumed this to be Dimitri.
Cropped blue bangs dotted with bleached white polka dots stuck out from under his hood, which he wore up, along with a dark kerchief that hid most of his face like some kind of ninja. Though he kept most of his body covered, he wore no shoes.
"Hey Dotty," he said in a high-monotone. With a pitch like that, he had to be pretty young.
"It's Diddy!" Diddy snapped. "Get me out of here, you thrift-store mannikin!"
"Sure," Dimitri said with a shrug, completely unfazed by her insults.
Helena wrenched her ankle free and stomped on Diddy's hand, just as Dimitri grabbed a hold of Diddy's other arm.
"WAIT!" Diddy shrieked, both in pain and desperation, "TAKE THE SUN QUEEN WITH US, YOU DOLT!"
But they had already disappeared in a poof of blue and white polka-dotted smoke. Helena rubbed out the drawing with her foot. Whatever kind of teleportation power this was, clearly it needed the drawing to work.
She quickly turned her attention back to Calypso. He'd let out a high-pitched whistle, and some type of enormous bird, no, a Zoan; a human-sized kestrel with long, dark-violet pigtails, swooped in and let him jump onto her back like a surfer. He dropped Kuina as he went, letting the Zoan catch the child in her talons.
With momentum like this creature had, there would be no catching up to them. Helena let out another scream of maternal rage, haki pulsing from her strong enough to knock out any of the Amazons still standing after Calypso's pec bounce.
"Get your hands off my daughter!" she screamed, vaulting the pit of spikes between her and the main arena.
To her surprise, someone echoed her in a powerful, regal voice. Hancock. The Snake Princess kissed the tips of two fingers and pointed them at the fleeing pair. An ephemeral heart shape hung in the air before her fingers
"Pistol Kiss!" she pronounced, firing her fingers off like a gun.
She had exceptional aim; however, Calypso was ready for her, even before she released the shot.
"Sinatra Song!" he proclaimed, throwing a slash so fast and powerful that Hancock, though sensing it with her formidable Haki, could not possibly dodge in time. Lucky for her, Helena had already darted by her side.
Her well-crafted sea prism dagger could handle a blow from Calypso, even without a haki coating, but deflecting it required strength Helena simply didn't have. It pushed her down onto her back, shattering the arena beneath her.
She'd given Hancock the split second she needed to avoid being cut in half. It had also allowed her to fire her Pistol Kiss though her aim had been thrown off.
The bird balked, releasing the statute in her grasp just before the heart-bullet grazed her talon, turning it to stone.
"Turn back, mon!" Calypso cried.
But the bird kept her forward momentum, leaving vapor trails. Calypso's loud curses dopplered as they both swiftly disappeared from sight.
"Kuina…" Helena croaked as she reached a helpless, shaking hand toward her daughter's rapidly descending form.
Calypso's slash had reduced much of the arena to rubble with Helena lying bloodied, bruised, but alive at the epicenter. She'd managed to deflect some of the slash harmlessly skyward in the end, or the blow would have crushed her. - Hancock had maintained her footing as the floor beneath her crumbled, and stood a few meters from Helena. Their eyes met for just a moment, then Hancock turned her attention on Kuina:
"Awaken!" she proclaimed, blowing a kiss at the falling statue and then leaping into the air with a kick of her powerful legs.
Little pink hearts enveloped Kuina, returning her to flesh and blood. – a much lighter and easier form for the Snake Princess to catch in her arms before landing in a crouch beside Helena.
The unfazed toddler blinked up at Hancock, smiling. "Hi!" she proclaimed, with a giggle.
Hancock's face registered no emotion as she turned down to look at Helena:
"That was stupid," the Empress informed her, "Why protect me?"
Helena coughed blood, but smiled:
"I didn't think you actually cared about my daughter til now," she admitted. "Thanks for saving her."
"I didn't do it for you," Hancock informed her.
Helena shrugged as if to say she didn't care. Then her eyes fell shut and she decided to take another nap.
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A/N:This update is late because it took me forever to decide how Calypso v. Hancock would work out. Thanks for being so patient with me!
And thank you for going to check out Dragoscilvio's story! I've loved seeing familiar names pop up in her reviews/favorites.